The things they don’t tell you…

by kashabrookeashworth

Before I came to Institute, I read everything I could that would give me insight into the experience. I talked to every staff member and 2012 corps member I could find. They told me a lot of things: they told me it would be hard, that I wouldn’t sleep a lot. They told me the bus rides would be sweaty and that I would stumble and fall down a lot and that teaching would be hard.

Those are the things they told me. What they didn’t tell me seems so much more important.

They didn’t tell me that my heart would find a capacity for love that I didn’t think it would. That this would happen in only five days. They didn’t tell me that being a good teacher meant being a rubber band that bends, doesn’t break. I didn’t know that 10 tiny 6 year olds would become a part of me, that Tulsa would feel like home, that a day at Institute would feel like a week and that fellow corps members that I met days ago, who I didn’t know when May turned to June would feel like a family. That I would crave their input and revel in their joy, that their sorrow would feel like my own.

What they don’t tell you is that Institute will change you and transform you if you let it.